How Newell Has Prepped Its Organization for Tariff Impacts

He said that in over half of the business that is not subject to tariffs, the company isn’t taking pricing, providing Newell with an advantage from a consumer value standpoint, as competitors may still see increases. 

The biggest challenge is often timing, as retail prices won’t begin to move up a little until the next month or two as a result, and so it hasn’t fully materialized yet in terms of retail prices for the consumer.

Also: How Nike will navigate a $1 billion tariff impact

On the retail side, Peterson said its partners have generally been understanding of pricing changes to not just cover tariff costs but also drive incremental productivity savings and tighten overhead spending. 

When the China tariffs went into effect, the company had a few retailers stop their direct import business for a period of time, which did impact inventory levels. But Newell said it didn’t affect out-of-stocks at retail, just shipments in the short term.

“We’re trying to be very mindful about not advantaging or disadvantaging one retailer versus another,” said Peterson. “We haven’t seen retailer inventory where we’re supplying on the majority of our business direct from our U.S. distribution centers. We haven’t seen a dramatic change in retailer inventory.”

Optimizing the Business

The company has been advancing its capabilities, which it said will help continue to bolster the organization as it navigates external challenges such as tariff disputes. 

For example, the company is now starting to see benefits from an added brand management capability that was part of a 2023 transformation initiative. As part of this, it rebuilt its consumer insights function, allowing Newell to better test innovation with consumers and retailers prior to going to market. 

Also, Newell is undergoing continued ERP integrations, completing two more during the second quarter. Home Fragrance was moved from Oracle to SAP, and two instances of Datasul, in Brazil, were migrated over to a single instance.